Gallery No. 3 in the WSU art building is polarized, as the black and white photographs and watercolors of “Unfinished” and the bright yellows and pinks of “Everything Must Go” face each other in quiet introspection. Hung on opposite walls and composed of vastly different mediums, the two separate exhibitions have more in common than a cursory glance would conclude.
“Unfinished” by Jessi “Jesseli” Pitman features a small watercolor book, a collection of three black-and-white photographs and a sweeping watercolor interpretation of a weeping willow tree. Pitman’s colorless pieces are meant to reflect her observations of recent social and cultural attitudes.
“It felt like everyone was so heavy and feeling this weight, a collective weight, and nobody really knew where it was coming from or why it was happening,” Pitman said.
Upon this revelation in mid-October, Pitman abandoned her previous work on her exhibition and chased this feeling, eventually capturing it in her current exhibition.
“I told my friends, let’s go to the studio right now and just shoot a bare, nude style photo and keep it very raw, I want you guys to just really feel those emotions you’ve been talking to me about,” she said.
This creative spontaneity is reflected in the sincerity of the work, which harbors a certain emptiness that Pitman says turns the attention back towards the viewer.
“It’s simple and it’s raw, it’s bare, but it’s also uncomfortable in that aspect where you have to confront these feelings head-on,” Pitman said. “It makes you look inward.”
In the series of photographs, Pitman explores the raw textures of humanity in a physical and theoretical sense. This exposure, according to Pitman, gets at the root of the title of her exhibition, “Unfinished.”
“I think this black and white, bringing out the texture of the skin and those imperfections and all that really spreads that message for me and unfinished is because we are still going in life,” Pitman said. “No one is at their finished place. We all are learning, we all are changing, we’re all affecting each other. So we’re all unfinished.”
Across the gallery, similar themes of identity are explored in Hailey Reynold’s stripped-down, colorful camp kaleidoscope. From black and white sketches inspired by Hal Fischer’s photography to a series of five candy-colored paintings revealing two sides of the same person, and subsequently two positions of gender performance.
“Originally, painting was just a medium to create images,” Reynolds said. “It was about creating a portrait of an important person. As time has gone on, I think painting is about the color of the paint, the quality of the paint, the material, how it’s used. Now, the paint is the art. It’s not just about the image that you’re creating.”
Her pieces use paint in an efficient and stripped-down manner, guiding the eye through the piece to the most detailed pieces, where it conveniently skips some of the less full segments. Through the series of paintings, the immediate optical fixations are all some aspect of a gender performance, whether that be a small boy or a drag queen. This juxtaposition, the colors and the all-around attitude of the exhibition all narrow to the point of exploring “camp”.
“It’s this idea of really exaggerated, over-the-top theatrics, it’s most commonly associated with femininity,” Reynolds said. “It’s exaggerated to the point of absurdity. So it’s not taken seriously and it’s humorous.”
The outside observation of camp is meant to have this humorous reaction, but the performance of camp is meant to be a sincere, artful exploration of gender.
“Gender is socially constructed,” Reynolds said. “Everyone performs their gender. Everyone performs elements to their identity.”
By interacting with these exaggerations, Reynolds says we can inch closer to freedom from the oppressive performance and explore the levity of gender identity.
“I think camp and drag are about tapping into types of femininity or performances of gender that aren’t necessarily taken seriously and kind of taking the power back,” Reynolds said. “With my work, I want to invite people to laugh and see the humorous side of it, but I also want to create an opportunity for people to kind of bite into that.”
Both Pitman and Reynolds poke and prod at the idea of an ever-changing human identity, and force the viewer to acknowledge, in Pitman’s case, the discomfort of seeking it out; and in Reynolds’s case, the absurdity of identity at all.
The BFA Exhibition offers viewers the chance to explore themselves through the culmination of two talented artists. This exhibition will be on display in Gallery No. 3 of the WSU art building until Sunday. A reception will be held in Gallery No. 3 from 4:30 to 6:30 pm on Dec. 4.
